


Of Dreams and Danger

by dreamiflame



Category: Seaward - Susan Cooper
Genre: 5 Things, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-18
Updated: 2012-12-18
Packaged: 2017-11-21 11:28:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/597211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamiflame/pseuds/dreamiflame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five things that never happened to Calliope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Dreams and Danger

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silveronthetree](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveronthetree/gifts).



> Some of the lines and phrases were lifted from the book, including the title. Thanks, Susan. Also thanks to my beta for a speedy review on short notice.

1\. The Long Illness

Beyond the garden, the poplars were tossing their green heads in the wind, waves breaking on some invisible shore. Cally sat below the apple tree, watching the petals of the blossoms fall around her like a soft rain, a warm fragrant snow. She huddled a little in her chair, under the blanket, and looked at the tiny green apples, just barely visible through the leaves. It would be a good harvest this year, Cally was sure.

Any other year, Cally would have been in the tree, despite her father's warnings about the blossoms setting. But this isn't any other year.

The kitchen door creaked, and Cally's mother came out, managing a wan smile. "Not too tired?" she asked, and Cally closed her eyes. She shook her head, tilting her face up to the sun, and behind her eyelids, the sky still stretched so, so blue. Cally's mother held back a sigh, but Cally was good at hearing them now. "Well, a little longer, then," she said, and went back inside.

Cally might be the one dying, but her parents were wasting away along side her.

Dinner that night was a quiet affair. The disease left Cally with no appetite, and worry was gnawing both of her parents to the bone. She set her fork down after five bites, feeling her stomach cramp. Her father just looked at her, once bright eyes sad. "A few more bites, that's my girl," he wheedled, and Cally made herself smile and take two more bites, just because it made his smile a shade more real. Cally's mother toyed with the same bite for too long before she finally swallowed it. Cally knew exactly how she felt.

Later, once they had carried her up to bed and tucked her in, Cally lay on her side and listened to them talk in whispers. Her body might be getting weaker, but her hearing only seemed to be sharpening. "She's getting worse," said Cally's mother, with something like a sob caught in her tone. There was a noise, like fabric moving against skin, and Cally knew her father had just taken her mother into his arms.

"We could try that hospital," he said, and the sob was back again, truer now. Cally closed her eyes and thought of apple blossoms. "The doctor said they might be able to help her there..."

It was not the first time they had spoken like this. Always before, Cally's mother had argued against it, insisting that Cally could get better at home just as easily as far away in a fancy hospital. But this time, there was a long, long pause.

"Maybe we should," Cally's mother whispered finally, and something had crumbled in her, broken beyond all repair. Cally thought it might be hope. "We'll call them tomorrow."

In the morning, Cally lay in bed and poked listlessly at her breakfast. It seemed so much effort to try to eat it, and it wasn't doing her any good. But her father looked at her with that pleading expression he got sometimes, so Cally made herself eat a little, a slice of toast and a few bites of oatmeal. It stuck in her throat until she felt she could barely breathe, but her father looked happier.

"Did you see the blossoms?" he asked her. "Plenty of apples this year."

"I saw them," she said. Her father turned his face from her, but not before she saw his wince. Her voice had been getting weaker over the months she had been sick. Her parents didn't mention it, but Jen had, the last time she had been over.

"It's weird, you being so sick and not in school," Jen had said, perched like a bird on the chair at the side of Cally's bed. "I haven't had anyone to help me with Latin, not even a little! I'll bet you don't miss school work."

"I do," Cally had said, but Jen had laughed, and not believed her.

She did, though, during the long, dull hours she spent in bed, too tired to even lift a book, much less try to learn something complicated, like Latin or mathematics. Cally should be getting ready for final exams, staying up too late trying to cram her head full of history and molecules.

Instead, she was going to be sent away, to a special hospital. Her mother came back up with her father, after he had taken her breakfast tray away, and told her about it. "It's by the sea," her father said. His eyes shimmered wetly, but he didn't let the tears fall.

Cally's mother was having a harder time of it. "They'll be able to help you there," she said, and the first tear escaped, followed by another. "They're sending a car for you."

Later, much later, Cally stood docile in overcoat and slippers, and watched the long dark blue car pull up to the gate. A uniformed driver got out, and opened the back door for a tall, older woman with white hair and blue eyes brighter than the sky. "Hello, Cally," she said, and took Cally's suitcase. "It's nice to see you again."

Her face was lined with age, but she had more life in her than Cally's parents, flanking her on either side to provide support. Cally thought that if she moved from in between them, they would both fall down, puppets with their strings cut. Her illness had taken so much from both of them, too, not just from her.

"Have we met before?" she asked the white haired woman, who smiled at her.

"Only once, at a distance, but we'll have a long time to talk on the ride to the hospital," she replied. She helped Cally down to the car, and tucked a blanket around her knees. Cally's parents followed at a distance, and clung to each other once she was settled. The woman sat beside her, and smiled out at her parents. "We'll take good care of her," she told them, and then the door was shut and the car was going, and Cally's parents were gone, faded into the distance. Her house, the garden, the poplars, the apple tree with all its blossoms, all gone.

Cally looked down at the blanket, then up at the woman. "Where are we going?"

"To the sea," the woman replied, and her lips turned up in a very small smile. "We travel seaward."

Cally had never seen the sea. It seemed a fitting thing to finally do so, now that she was sure she was going to die. She settled back against the seat and closed her eyes. "Wake me when we get there," she said, and closed her eyes.

Beside her, Taranis smoothed down the blanket and smiled.

2\. Life With Rhiannon

'It will not hinder you, if you touch it without fear.'

But Cally had, and Cally had been hindered. Cally was stuck, and the wall of the People was doing its job.

She slept in Ryan's house, in Ryan's borrowed nightgown, and worked for Ryan, when the sun was up. Stonecutter still took no more notice of her than another stick of furniture, unless she was idle.

And day after day, Lady Taranis came for her.

She stood in the doorway, held at bay still by Ryan's elder and dock, and spoke in a calm, coaxing voice. She talked of Cally's parents, and of how they missed her, and how much they would like to see her again. Cally clutched the rag or plate or piece of wood in her hands and tried not to listen, but day by day she was being worn down.

Every day, Lady Taranis would hold out her hand. "Come with me, Cally, and I'll take you to them."

And every day Cally held firm and extended her own hand, safely inside Ryan's power, Ryan's protection. "Come," she would ask, and Lady Taranis would flare with anger and withdraw.

Ryan squeezed her shoulders and called her brave, but her eyes were sad and tired. Ryan couldn't leave. Stonecutter had something, something she needed, and Ryan couldn't leave.

But Cally could have, if she could have been less afraid.

They talked sometimes, so late at night it was really early morning, sipping tea and watching the moon set. Ryan would glance at the burlap bag on a shelf, still waiting for its burden of food and clothes. "You can still go," Ryan told her.

Cally thought of the huge, freezing stone wall outside, the wall that became the People when the sun rose, and shook her head. She couldn't bear the thought of trying to climb over it again, remembering how she had been caught, frozen by more than the frigid stone until the sun came, and the rocks moved away from her. "Maybe someday," she said, the same answer she always gave, and sipped her tea.

Then the morning would come, and they would cook breakfast and eat with Stonecutter, and be silent about Cally leaving.

Cally gathered wood and water, picked herbs for Ryan, helped Ryan tend the small garden. And always, always, when she heard the singing, the same sweet refrain her mother had sung, Cally went to the house. No matter where she was, or what she was doing, Cally would run for the house, and everything would be fine.

Until the day she didn't make it.

Cally was out, farther in the wood than she had been in her time with Ryan. But they needed kindling, and the places near the house were picked clean. Cally had an armful of deadfall and was just about to turn back to the house.

The singing swamped her, breaking over her like a wave until Cally thought for sure she would drown. She dropped the wood, turning to run, but it was late, too late, far too late.

Lady Taranis had her arm, and a bitter, triumphant smile. "Finally," she said, and pulled Cally closer. "This is my country," she said, and Cally tried very hard not to flinch away. "I should not have to work this hard."

"I don't want to go with you," Cally said, but her voice was feeble, and Taranis' smile only got wider.

"You don't have a choice," she replied, and they were moving, faster than Cally had ever moved. Cally shrieked and hid her eyes with her hands.

When the wind died down, and Cally looked up, they were on the edge of the sea. Cally stared. It was big, enormous, almost hurting her brain as she tried to take in all of it. The waves crashed on the shore, and they didn't sound anything like the poplar trees back home. Not even a little.

"My parents?" Cally said, when she could finally turn away from the sea. Lady Taranis smiled at her, cold and cruel and bright.

"Will you come with me now, of your own free will?" she asked.

It was a trap. Cally knew it was a trap. But she had already been caught once, and Ryan was far away, and powerless here. She missed her mum and dad.

Lady Taranis held out her hand again, and Cally took it. "Yes," she said.

"Finally," Lady Taranis said, with something like victory shining from her face. "I'll take you to your parents now."

Cally held the cold white hand, and tried to not be afraid.

 

3\. The Stone Girl

When Westerly closed his eyes for the last time, he had a smile on his face. His children, grandchildren, and assorted other family marveled at how happy their patriarch looked, to be leaving them.

But West knew he was going back.

He found himself on the same long road he'd seen so many years before, back when his mother had died, and he had traveled in Taranis' country, heading for the sea to find his father. And though his instincts were telling him to go on to the boats, and find the one to Lugan's country, West had promised himself a different journey.

It took a long time, or maybe it took no time at all. West couldn't be sure, not in this place that was half dream and half memory. But he rowed himself over the lake to the island, still standing gray and tall in the sunlight, and he climbed the stairs with the step of a much younger man.

When he reached in his pocket, standing on the stone landing between the two rooms, West was not surprised to find a knife in it, a knife he had long ago lost. He placed the tip on the door, and mumbled words half forgotten. The door swung open.

The room was the same, not changed even a little. West gave it a sad, tired smile, and opened the trapdoor. The rope ladder fell down, and West put his hands on it and began to climb.

Taranis' land was changing him. Already, he felt younger, more healthy, limbs that he had started to mistrust in his final years now responding again as they had in his youth. West pulled himself onto the roof and turned to face the stone dragon.

And the stone girl.

Cally still lay where she had fallen, all those years ago, her arm raised to ward off Stonecutter's blow. West moved over to her and perched on the nearest coil of stone dragon, regarding his companion for such a brief time.

"Well," he said, "I did it. I made it to the sea, and I made it home, and I made it through life. I had three boys and two girls, Cally. The girls were Calliope Jade and Jasmine Cally. You'd have liked them, I think." He laughed, looking away, so he could stop seeing the look of terror frozen on Cally's stone face. "I taught them to whistle like a boy, like you could."

He talked for hours, while the sun warmed his skin and the breeze ruffled his white hair. His voice gave out, after a while, and West wished he had something to drink. He shrugged it off and kept talking, telling Cally all about his life, the life he had gotten to have while hers had been lost in stone.

It wasn't the same, of course, and West didn't even know if Cally could hear him. But he talked, and his heart felt lighter when his voice died entirely, near sunset. He spent the night on the roof, not tired, not even thinking of sleep, merely looking up at the stars and seeing how their patterns were different from the ones he had known at home.

When the sun came back, so did a trace of his voice. "Hey," he said, thinking of something finally, "I wonder why that didn't work, what you said that day. What was it? 'Oh birds of-'" he searched his memory for the name, something half heard and miserable as Cally muttered to herself. "'Oh birds of Rhiannon, please come.'" He looked down at Cally, trying to ignore the expression on her face, and smiled at her. "I wonder why they didn't."

And then he heard a sound, over the breeze, and he looked up, and they were coming, finally: the birds of Rhiannon, come to Cally at last. They fluttered overhead, and each dropped a feather, plucked from its own breast, so that Cally was lost to view, buried under a mountain of down. The calls of the birds filled the air, catching at Will's ears. Perhaps if he had been younger, he would have cringed away, covered his ears. But West was an old man now, and he had already died. Nothing more in this place could harm him. The feathers brushed his cheeks, his forehead, as they fell down around Cally, and West lifted his face to the sky. "It's about time," he said, but softly, because he was grateful, even if Cally couldn't be.

There was a stirring under the mound, and Cally popped out from the mess of feathers, brushing down from her hair. "What _happened_?" she asked, and then she saw him, her eyes going wide. "West? Is that you?"

"Hallo, Cally," he said, and grinned so hard his face hurt. "Welcome back."

His voice gave out three more times, telling her everything that had happened, but at length they sat facing one another, Cally with her arms wrapped around her knees, chin propped on them, and West with his legs crossed, enjoying the warmth of the sun on his face. "I've been gone so long," Cally said, finally.

"Yes," West agreed, because it was true, and he knew better now than to try to lie to a child. "Your home will be very different, if you go back."

"Go back?" Cally said, then shook her head. "No, I'll go with you. To the sea."

"To the sea." It was, West reflected, where they had been heading all those years ago. It would be good to journey with someone else again. He thought of Peth, and how the creature had saved him from the desert, from himself, and felt a pang of sadness. There would be no Peth to guide them through this time. West would have to remember the way on his own.

"It'll be fun," Cally said, and West smiled again at her, heart lighter than it had been in years.

"Yes," he said, and took the lead down the ladder. And it was.

4\. Selkie Heritage Accepted

"Come with us!" Ryan called. "Come home!"

And everything in Cally was calling out for her to accept, and her hands were aching with the force of her longing, of the ancestral longing from her great great great grandmother, torn from the sea by a human thief-

She flung herself after Ryan, and the sea welcomed her, gathered her up in watery arms like Snake had saved them from the dark in his black coils. And as the water closed over her head, Cally felt herself shift, and change, and knew she had become a seal.

Her arms were caught at her side, and she kicked with her feet- no, with flippers, that she had never had before, or even dreamed she would. Cally laughed out loud, in delight, bubbles trailing upward through the blue green of the light under the sea. She shot to the surface, grabbing a lungful of air, then threw herself down again.

Snake came to meet her, and Ryan, and all the other sleek, gleaming black bodies, singing welcome and home and love until Cally thought her heart would burst. So she sang back, somehow knowing the words even as she sang them, and she swam and played among them, and Cally was home.

It wasn't until much later that she remembered the sea had not been the only thing she had longed for.

Lugan was on the shore when Cally went to the sand and shed her skin for the first time, holding it awkwardly to cover herself. "Cally," he greeted her, his deep voice like the earth grumbling beneath her. "You have questions."

"What happened to Will?" she asked, wrapping the skin around her like a sarong. "Did he find his father?"

"Yes," Lugan said, and Cally clutched her skin tighter. At least she had that, the idea that Will had found what he was looking for and was happy. She hoped he was happy.

"Good," she said, and smiled at him. It felt strange in a way it hadn't before, but she was already used to smiling as a seal, with whiskers up and mouth open. "I need to get back. Can you tell him I said good luck, and goodbye?"

"I will tell him," Lugan said, and Cally went back to the sea.

But her perfect joy in the water, in swimming, in everything that went with being a selkie had a sour note now: she missed West. Cally swam deeper and farther and played harder. She couldn't stop missing him, but she didn't need to stop living her own life.

And then came the day the pod swam out to play among the shores of the island, and Cally caught a glimpse, just a fleeting one, really, of West, smiling as he sat on a rock next to a man who looked like an older version of him. Cally almost went to him then, almost shed her skin and walked the shore to meet him.

Ryan blocked her way, rubbing her long sinuous body along Cally's. She sang of food and love and the sea, and Cally felt herself waver. She had loved West, maybe, but this was where she belonged, in the pod, in the sea, with Ryan and Snake.

She turned her back on the shore and rubbed against Ryan before shooting ahead of her, laughter blowing bubbles in her wake.

Selkies were joy. Cally was a selkie. She dove to the depths of the clear sweet ocean and raced back to the surface, gulping sweet fresh air and feeling it fill her like sunlight. With joy.

Laughing, Cally followed her pod back out to sea.

 

5\. Tir Na n'Og

In the mornings, Cally climbed the apple tree, so like and yet not like the one outside her childhood home. The blossoms fell around her head and shoulders, but no matter how many fell, there were always more petals.

Nothing ever truly dies, in Tir Na n'Og.

"Cally!" her mother would call, from inside their little cottage. "Breakfast!"

Cally slid down from the tree, never scratching herself, not even on the roughest branches, and went in to eat. Her father teased her over breakfast, speaking about the things he planned to teach her, to change her oil and a flat tire, to skin a rabbit and shoot a bird. Cally ate the hot, sweet porridge her mother made and smiled at her father, and didn't respond.

After breakfast she went out to find West.

West lived down the island, where the land was dried and rockier. He was waiting for her, outside, idly tossing some rocks at the nearest tree. "Morning," he said, when she appeared, and took her hand. Cally squeezed his fingers, feeling the same flutter in her belly she always got when he took her hand. "Where should we go today?"

"The caves by the sea," she said, and West grinned and nodded. So they walked there, talking of nothing, of how their parents were, and whether it might rain later that day. Cally said it would, just to be oppositional. West, still smiling, just shook his head.

They found a quiet place in the sea caves, and West spread out the blanket he had carried under the arm not holding her hand. Cally sat down, and after a moment, West sat beside her. He took her hand again, and traced her smooth palm.

Neither of them had gotten used to the absence of her selkie hands yet.

After a time Cally leaned forward and kissed him, sweet and gentle. Will smiled against her lips before kissing back, and Cally felt a bubble of laughter rising in her throat. They always did this, kissed and laughed and held each other close. But they didn't go farther.

"West," she asked finally, when they parted for air, and she was leaning her head on his shoulder. West made a listening noise, not quite his usual 'Hum' of thought. "Do you ever want to do more?"

"Course," he said, a little too quickly, and Cally felt her breath catch in her throat. "But remember what Lugan said. We have to be wise enough not to want more than it is possible to have."

"I guess," she said, though she didn't sound quite sure. "But I think... I think we could have that, if we wanted. If we both want it, we must be able to have it, right?"

West laughed, then kissed her again, and this kiss was fierce and hot, his tongue in her mouth. Cally clutched at his shoulders and kissed back, feeling the tingle spread down her spine and up her body. "We can try," he said, and he was breathing hard, just as hard as Cally was.

"Let's," Cally said, so they did. It was a little awkward, and the rocks were still rough under the blanket. Cally didn't quite reach the peak, though she felt like she could have, and West was blushing, feeling he had reached it too soon. She kissed his cheek and then his mouth again, petting him like a shy horse. "It's okay," she said.

"Is it?" he asked, and held her closer. Cally stroked his back and listened to his heart beat. "I'll do better next time," he promised, looking out the cave mouth to the sea.

Cally rested her chin on his shoulder and closed her eyes. "I know," she said, and they were quiet until it was time to go back home.

**Author's Note:**

> So your Yuletide Author letter suggested you like AUs, and I love five things stories, so you got five AUs for Cally. I really hope you enjoyed this, and happy winter holiday of your choice!


End file.
